Newborns in South Korea are expected to live an average of 82.4 years, with boys living 79 years and girls living 85 years, Statistics Korea said Tuesday.

The new estimates are an increase of 3.9 years for boys and 3.3 years for girls, from those made a decade ago. The difference of average life expectancy among genders has been narrowing since 1985, when it was 8.6 years, according to the report.

Females had a higher life expectancy with 78.4 percent of girls and 57.9 percent of boys expected to live past 80 years.

Source: Statistics Korea

Overall, the report was optimistic on babies born in 2016 living past 65, with 87 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls are expected to live more than 65 years. Around 98 percent of newborns are expected to live past 40, it added.

As for death, newborns of 2016 have a 21 percent chance of dying from cancer, 11.8 percent chance of dying from heart disease, 8.8 percent by cerebrovascular disease, and 7.8 percent by pneumonia.

The probability of death from pneumonia increased most drastically in the past decade by 5.1 percent, while mortality from cerebrovascular disease decreased the most, by 4.3 percent.

Eliminating the possibility of cancer alone increased life expectancy by 3.9 years, the report said.

Men currently 60 years old are expected to live an additional 22.5 years while women the same age are expected to live 27.2 more years. The new estimates for 60-year-olds reflect a 2.9-year average increase from 2006.

The average life expectancy for Koreans was higher than the OECD average by 1.4 years for males and 2.3 years for females. Women ranked fourth, and men ranked 15th regarding life expectancy among 35 OECD countries, it said.